Writing Prompt Wednesday 04-19-17

On this day in history, a couple of very important events occurred, which forever altered not only the fate of the nation of the United States of America, but the rest of the world, as well.

April 19.1775 marks the day the American Revolution got its real start. At about 5 in the morning, British troops converged on Lexington and those 700 soldiers met 77 minutemen. Moments later, the “shot heard around the world: was fired and the Revolution began.

Looking forward a few years, on April 19, 1861, the first blood of the American Civil War spilled to the ground in Baltimore, when a group; attacked troops heading for Washington D.C.

With these things in mind, I thought it would be an interesting idea to do a set of writing prompts which are geared toward historical events or alternative history.

Ready? Here we go!

The protagonist has been having visions of a past life as a soldier in the Civil War. When he tries to find out why this is happening, he goes to a past-life regression specialist, who tells him he was a major part of the war.

The protagonist is working in their field one day when suddenly they find themselves transported to a version of America in which the South won the American Civil war.

The story takes place from the point of view of a protagonist who is under the command of Genghis Khan. He knows GK is crazy and should be eliminated and takes steps to make it happen.

In a distant future civilization, the history books have been rewritten so many times it is hard to tell what is the truth. The overall belief is that America was a place where people would go and be immediately captured and put into work-farms and camps. The country was looked on as pure evil and is the reason people should not have freedom of expression, religion or any sort of autonomy.

The Civil War has been raging for dozens of years and does not show any signs of stopping any time soon. The protagonist has always dreamed of being a soldier in it, but was always told he should never do it for religious reasons. He abandons his family to do it anyway.

There you go folks. History can be a rich stockpile of ideas and you should never be afraid to see what you can do with a story by simply tweaking certain parts of it. You might be surprised at what comes to mind when you allow yourself the freedom to ask the question, “What if…?”